2"^ S. V. 123., May 8. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



375 



this king's health upon their knees, and not long after 

 sought to betray him : this I have from an eye-witness 

 of good quality." — Hall's Downfall of May-games. 4to. 

 1661, p. 3. 



Geokge Offob. 



Telegram. — I find the following in the Washing- 

 ton National Intelligencer for March 27. As the 

 communication bears the initials of a very old friend 

 of mine, who is eminently qualified to give an 

 opinion upon this and all similar subjects, I send 

 the extract for your use, in any way you may 

 judge best : — 



" In the London Notes and Queries of November 21, 

 1857, I find among the ' Minor Notes ' the following : — 



"' Telegram. — The oldest date given to this word aS 

 3-et is two years ago, and its earliest habitat the United 

 States. It may be carried farther, for it was used in 

 Liverpool four years ago,- and nearly as long ago in Lon- 

 don. ' "" •HyDK CLARIiE.' 



" When and where Telegram was first used as a head- 

 ing for telegraphic intelligence is easily ascertained. On 

 the 27th of April, 1852, in the Z>ai7y American Telegraph, 

 published in this city, the editor, Mr. Thos. C. Connolly, 

 thus introduced the word : — 



" ' Telegram. — Telegraph means to write from a dis- 

 tance; Telegram the writing itself, executed from a dis- 

 tance. Monogram, Logogram, &c., are words formed 

 upon the same analogy and in good acceptation. Hence 

 Telegram is the appropriate heading of a telegraphic 

 despatch. Well, we'll go it. Look to our heading.' 



" The telegraphic despatches in the same paper were 

 accordingly given under the heading of Telegrams. This 

 heading was continued daily for some time, but as it 

 found no favour with the Press of the country it was drop- 

 ped, and the old heading, 'News by P'lectric Telegraph,' 

 was resumed. P. F. 



" Washington, March 26, 1858." 



P. T. 



7'Ae fi7'st English Almanac printed in German 

 form. — I take the following cutting from a recent 

 number of the Boston Morning Post : — 



" JohnGruber, a native of Strasburg, Lancaster county. 

 Pa, and the founder or publisher of the first English al- 

 manac printed in the Gorman form, known as ' the Dutch- 

 English Almanac,' died on the 5th inst., at Hagerstown, 

 Md., at the advanced age of ninety years, leaving an 

 aged widow, and an extensive familv connection," 



w. w. 



First Iron Passage Boat. — It is recorded in 

 The London Magazine of May, 1820, that 



" a boat of iron would have sounded strangely in the ears 

 of our ancestors : we live in an age, however, when no- 

 thing seems impossible in mechanics, and may expect to 

 have soon to announce a balloon of lead. A malleable 

 iron passage boat was constructed last winter and spring, 

 for the Forth and Clyde Canal Company, by Mr. Wilson, 

 shipbuilder, from the designs, and under the direction of 

 Mr. Henry Creighton, late of Soho, now of Glasgow. The 

 hull was built of iron, in order to avoid the often recur- 

 ring and expensive repairs to which the wooden vessels 

 had been found liable. Considerable opposition to the 

 plan Avas made by the persons connected with the navi- 

 gation of the boats, who said it would be found inconve- 

 nient and unfit for the service ; but experience has proved 

 it ptherwise, and The Vulcan has been found to be the 



most agreeable and manageable of the passage-vessels in 

 every variety of weather, while, though carrying more 

 passengers than any on the old plan, it is as easil_v tracked 

 as the smallest of them ; and from the lowness of the cen- 

 tre of gravity, it admits of a large cabin and awning on 

 deck, where the passengers are better accommodated than 

 in the former way below." 



w. w. 



Malta. 



Roman Antiquities. — The church of Crosby- 

 upon-Eden, four miles from Carlisle, is near the 

 wall of Severus. From the stones of this wall the 

 old church was built ; and a larger one being 

 lately wanted, the stones of the wall are again 

 turned to account. At any rate the stones will 

 be saved. N. 



Scde of a Negro Boy. — In the account of the 

 trial of John Rice, who was hanged for forgery at 

 Tyburn, May 4, 1763, it is said, "A commission 

 of bankruptcy having been taken out against 

 Rice, his effects were sold by auction, and among 

 the rest his negro boy." I could not have be- 

 lieved such a thing could have taken place so 

 lately ; there is little doubt it was the last of the 

 kind. * A. A. 



Poets' Corner. 



White Surrey, — The following ingenious sug- 

 gestion seems worth transplanting into "N. & Q." 

 from a review of Mr. Hingeston's edition of Cap- 

 grave's Chronicle of England, which appeared in 

 John Bull of the 10th April : — 



" The spelling, too, which is elaborately preserved 

 throughout, is an important help in tracing the structure 

 of our words. By the way, we may remark here that 

 Capgrave always spells the name of the country now 

 written Sj-ria as Surre. — as does Chaucer at the begin- 

 ning of the Knight's Tale. Does not this explain the 

 name of Richard's charger in Shakspeare — 



* Saddle white Surrey for the field to-morrow.' 



Surrey meaning a Sj-rian horse, just as in Richard II. 

 ' roan Barbary ' is the name of a barb? We do not re- 

 collect that the annotators on Shakspeare have observed 

 this." 



Alitor ^vitxiti. 



St. Patrick's Crosier. — In Alban Butlei''s Lives 

 of the Saints the apostle of Ireland is represented 

 bearing a staff with two crosses on it, instead of 

 the usual crosier. Is any legend alluded to, or 

 any special authority for such a representation ? 



C. O. I. 



Dedication of a Church to St. Patrick. — Has 

 any church been so dedicated since the Refor- 

 mation, and would there be any objection to such 

 a course ? Several (as at Bloomsbury, Hanover 

 Square, &c.) have been dedicated to St. George, 

 whose very existence has been doubted by some, 

 and his orthodoxy questioned by others : whereas 



